Category: Dispersal

We wanted it natural…but not that much nature!

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Dispersal May 29, 2013

West Linn police trap beaver that moved into a front-yard water feature

West Linn police thought they were going to deal with a sick animal Saturday at a home along River Street. But when they found a feisty beaver had taken up residence in a front-yard water feature, it was a whole different ballgame.

“The animal wasn’t sick at all,” said Officer Mike Francis, West Linn police spokesman. “He was just being territorial, staking his claim to the water feature.”

Thank goodness this happened in Oregon and nothing TOO bad happened to this beaver but after reading these grim details I want to cross examine these witnesses.

. “Mr. Harper,” I’d like to say in a Perry Mason voice, “Could you describe for the court your intention in putting in this water feature?”

“We wanted the yard to look natural” he’d say casually, and I’d lean closer, knowing I had the judge’s full attention.

“So natural that a beaver might move in?” I’d invite, enjoying the murmur of the jury.

“No” he’d stammer. “We didn’t want beavers. We just wanted birds, well not the kind that eat the koi. No raccoons, no beavers no turtles, we just wanted it to look natural, but not that much nature!”

And in my mind this home-owner courtroom would gasp and nod knowingly, and that’s when I’d show the video, to make sure the jury saw things my way. A scared little beaver stuffed in a hole. A crazy home-owner without an eye-dropper’s worth of compassion. And a snotty, squealing boy named ‘Maverick’ of all things.

They’d be shaking their heads by the end, and even the officer I called as witness would blush a little. Now I’d show a nice video of the little woman Sherri Tippie live trapping a beaver, soothing it and gently releasing it into a broad stream.

“You deliberately built a feature that looked natural because you wanted your yard to appear natural. Should we blame this young beaver for taking you at your word? In all likelihood the beaver would have moved on anyway, but if he didn’t you could clearly afford to hire Ms Tippie to relocate him appropriately. Instead you monopolized the afternoon of two peace officers and who might have otherwise been busy saving lives or property.’

“The beaver in question was an adolescent leaving home for the first time. Doesn’t he deserve a gentler response to his independence than this? What kind of response should the world take for Maverick when he leaves home for college and winds up staying overnight in the wrong place?”

‘Mr. Harper, would you please take a look at the back of the flag and tell me what you see.”

“A beaver” he’d whisper.

” I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Could you say that again for the jury.”

“A beaver” he’d snap.”But if I lived in California I wouldn’t let a grizzly bear live in my yard either!”

I’d smile with the jury to show how un-intimidated I was by his argument. “No doubt!” I’d agree. “You’ve made it clear that you don’t want nature of any kind in your natural looking yard. No birds. No beavers. No raccoons. In fact, the only kind of nature you can tolerate at all apparently is human nature. And the lowest kind of that. Fear, ignorance, curiosity, disgust. That seems to be the only nature you can bear.” I’d turn my head and leave the witness stand.

“Your honor, I rest my case”.

In my fantasy home-owner courtroom beaver justice would be served. Mr. Harper would have to pay salary for the time he monopolized the police as his personal animal control unit, and the water feature would be donated to the state, which better understands how to live with nature. 5 girl scouts would sew fabric into that snare so that it didn’t cause internal bleeding the next time the police used it and staff from PAWS would come check on that little beaver just to make sure he’s okay.

Thank goodness! I’ve been waiting to use this graphic forever!

The real sign of the beaver!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Dispersal, Friends of Martinez Beavers, pictures May 21, 2013

Naturally Curious: Scented Signposts

Mary Holland

When they disperse, most young beavers go downstream to look for unoccupied territory. Ideally they come upon an old, abandoned beaver pond that has regrown a good supply of aspens, willows and birches — a beaver’s preferred diet. However, young beavers are rarely that lucky. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility for these young upstarts to attempt to move into an inhabited pond site, so resident beavers take measures to alertthese youngsters that the pond is spoken for.

In an attempt to discourage young beavers from lingering, one of the first things adult beavers do in the spring is to mark the perimeter of their territory. They do so by gathering mud and leaves from the bottom of their pond and making piles, or “scent mounds” to advertise their presence as well as ownership to any beavers passing by. They deposit castoreum, a secretion that conveys information such as the beaver’s age and sex, on each mound by straddling it, everting their castoreum sacs and dragging them across the mound. Scent mounds vary in size, from a height of just a few inches, to three feet or so and they are usually located within two feet from the water’s edge. The pheromones in the castoreum are broadcast far and wide from these mounds. An encroaching 2-year-old beaver detects the odor, and, if it is smart, continues on its way. If a stray male beaver deposits some of his own scent on a resident’s scent mound, or stops to feed, the resident male drives him off by hissing loudly, and if that doesn’t work, he attacks the interloper.

This is a nice article about a little appreciated beaver behavior that really only gets talked about at all if we’re complaining that castoreum is used in strawberry flavoring, or some such nonsense. Scent marking is essential to beaver survival and indirectly lead to the success of the fur trade – since even once metal traps were invented, trappers had no idea what to bait them with, until someone accidentally tried castoreum! Wham! Instant beaver!

We have been avidly looking for scent mounds in Martinez, but never spotted any. We’ve even asked visiting beaver experts to hunt them down with no avail. Where ever our beavers are marking their territory, we it’s a secret we haven’t yet uncovered. Mary’s article is on the Valley news site and definitely worth a read, but the paper has an impolite subscription policy that might not let you come back so just between us shhh.

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Late-breaking news: our friend Malcom Kenton of Washington D.C. was inspired enough by beavers to write his own ballad and he’s looking for a musician! Here’s a taste but you really should go read the rest of it!

Many of fur and fin and feather all would gather ’round

Where pools of still, deep water were plenty to be found,

Made by a flat-tailed engineer whose works helped shape the land.

The beaver, steward of the continent’s streams, made ponds and wetlands so grand.

Inspired yet? Cheryl took this photo last night of some hard working-stewardship happening at the secondary dam!

Beaver Mudding: Cheryl Reynolds

Vancouver’s Beaver I.Q.

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Dispersal April 16, 2013

A photo of the beaver sighted at the Olympic Village. Photograph by: Vince Kwok

Olympic Village gets furry new resident – beaver moves in

By JESSICA BARRETT, VANCOUVER SUN

A beaver had been spotted in the man-made water channel in Hinge Park on Friday and MacKinnon was curious to confirm the flat-tailed rodent had indeed moved in.

For 20 minutes, MacKinnon watched the beaver — he estimates it is about two years old — as it swam the length of the small wetland and sauntered up on the bank. The animal doesn’t seem to have built a lodge yet, and appeared fairly comfortable with its exposure to humans, said MacKinnon, author of the best-selling 100 Mile Diet and a self-described amateur naturalist.

Unusual as it may seem, the Olympic Village beaver is part of a trend, said Robyn Worcester, conservations program manager at the Stanley Park Ecology Society. “They’re turning up pretty regularly right now,” she said.

This lovely article has some of the very BEST descriptions of beaver dispersal that I’ve ever seen in the paper. In fact, I’m starting to think that Vancouver is giving Washington a run for its money as having the highest beaver-IQ in the Northern Hemisphere….if not the world. Just look at the description from Robyn Worcester of the Stanley Park Ecology Society:

This time of year many young beavers are settling in city parks along the waterfront after leaving the ponds they grew up in to find their own habitat. Eventually they find their way to the Fraser River, which spits them into English Bay or Burrard Inlet, Worcester said.

“They have to find their way to the nearest fresh water body. Generally they’ll hit Jericho and they’ll hit Stanley Park … and now they’ll go so far as the Olympic Village.”

Honestly, I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read where folks were stunned that beavers were milling around in the spring, showing up uninvited, while reporters and ecologists seemed to scratch their heads and fail to understand why they were on the move. Infestation? Illegal Migration? Bachelors gone wild? The mystery of beaver dispersal apparently confounds most of the known world, even though it happens every year. It also happens to be the source of one of my very most beloved photos of all time.

But apparently the ‘mystery’ is no mystery to Vancouver. Not only do they understand beaver behavior and dispersal, they apparently know the routes they’re likely to use to get there! Hats off to Robyn and the great reporter on this article. Although I sent them emails to update their understanding of this:

beavers are often in a hurry to get out of salt water because it makes them ill.

Obviously the occasion called for a little Greg Hood and ‘salty seaside ponds‘.

even some beaver researchers, are unaware that beaver can be found in estuarine tidal marshes when the salinity is less than 10 parts per thousand (seawater is typically 30-35 ppt, while freshwater is less than 0.5 ppt).

As well a liberal showing of this video at their next staff meeting!

How do I know Vancouver is getting smarter than Washington about beavers? Remember my post about Adrian and the installation in Mission earlier? Adrian thanked me and sent this back:

When I drove back out to Mission to look at the property I started seeing culvert fences in all the ditches. Apparently the city now has 9 flow devices in that they’ve been building themselves.

Lemonade and Lemons

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Dispersal, Who's Killing Beavers Now? April 8, 2013

Wow, nice job! Great lesson for all those science students who learn to solve problems instead of killing them. Here’s hoping the science teacher includes a section on why beavers are a keystone species, and how important they’re involved in saving water. Maybe they should read this chapter by Enos Mills while they’re at it. 911wildlife is a large company with offices from Houston to Dallas in central Texas run by a Bonnie Bradshaw whom I of course I wrote to make sure they had all the information they might need! (She’s already written back. Hmm beaver festival Texas?) All I can say is that it’s much better than this story out of Minnesota:

MARCH 11

Animal concern. A possibly sick beaver was reported walking around in the 6000 block of 145th Circle. The DNR was contacted and advised that the animal’s behavior was not normal and it should be dispatched. Police removed the beaver from the area and killed it.

You and I both know that the ONLY thing unusual about that beaver was that it was walking around instead of swimming, and apparently neither the officers or the entire Department of Natural Resources had ever heard of DISPERSAL before. They obviously couldn’t glance at their ‘dam’ calendars and recognize that it was April and time for these youngsters to find home of their own. Much better to just kill them.

A nice caveat to this story is that when I wrote the chief of police about this fiasco yesterday he had the presence of mind to say that this particular block was covered by the county sheriff’s and his officers hadn’t done it. Good. At least they have the sense to be ashamed.

Daylight trickles in..

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, Educational, Environmental March 30, 2013

A couple months ago I commented about an article from naturalist Carla Carlson in Niagra. She was writing about strange beaver phenomena like coprophagia without actually mentioning anything useful that beavers contribute to the watershed. Wasted air time much? I was reassured by mutual friends that she was a good egg, so I sent her a care package of beaver education, and received a response. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t exactly hopeful, but it seemed worth a shot.

If only we were more like the beaver

Quoting from Water by Alice Outwater, “Beavers do more to shape their landscape than any other mammal except for human beings, and their ancestors were building dams 10 million years ago. These Miocene beavers were seven feet long, felling trees ages before the mammoths roamed. Their underground spiral burrows can be found from western Europe to central Asia and North America. Legends of these prehistoric giants were once widespread. The Indians of Nova Scotia claimed to know of an ancient beaver dam so vast that it flooded the Annapolis Valley. Farther west, tales circulated of tribal ancestors using immense beaver teeth to hollow out their canoes.

“In tribes across North America, legend had it that the beaver helped the Great Spirit build the land, make the seas, and fill both well with animals and people. Long, long ago when the Great Waters surged in a blind and shoreless world, the gigantic beaver swam and dove and spoke with the Great Spirit. The two of them brought up all the mud they could carry, digging out the caves and canyons and shaping the mud into hills and dales, making mountains where cataracts plunged and sang. Some tribes believed that thunder was caused by the great beaver slapping his tail.”

Love the title! This is much better! A recognition of beaver dams shaping landscapes for millions of years! Which they’re still trying to do today…Honestly this is a much smarter introduction to beavers, well, except for the fact that scientists think Castorides didn’t build dams, or chew trees…Honestly, I hate to look a beaver gift horse in the mouth, but the collection of facts in this article bear no resemblance to the facts I am familiar with…

Their mating, breeding season is from January through February. “beavers sometimes mate in the relative comfort of their lodges, but more often choose to couple under water, and in some cases, under the ice.”

We have footage of our beavers mating in December, on the surface of the water.

Those females that find mates at two years of age or older, (usually three years old), breed every year, ovulating 2-4 times at seven to 15 day intervals during the breeding season. The larger the female the larger her litter.

Natural History of a Wetlands Engineer: Dietland Muller-Swarze

However, the numbers born are dependent on the number of yearlings living with her, the more of them, the fewer newborns. Nature is beyond amazing isn’t it?

In 2007, our beaver mom had zero beaver living with her and produced 4. In 2008 mom had 4 beavers living with her and produced 4. In 2009 mom had four beavers living with her and produced four. In 2010 mom had zero beaver living with her and produced three. This year our new mom had zero beavers living with her and produced one.

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Sigh. People sometimes tell me I’m too exacting. Ruthlessly committed to precision instead of listening to the gist of the message. Okay, its possible that’s true when folks talk about beavers too. I was trying to be patient. Really I was.

It just took too long.